Hilda Oates Williams

Theater, film and television actress. National Theater Prize. Hilda Oates, the Black Sun of the Cuban stage—as ethnologist Rogelio Martínez Furé once categorized her. Hilda will be remembered by many for her role in the seminal work María Antonia, by Eugenio Hernández Espinosa; as well as for her work in Cuban films Cecilia (Humberto Solás), Maluala (Sergio Giral), Habanera (Pastor Vega), and Patakín (Manuel Octavio Gómez). Likeable, elegant, jovial and possessing a powerful voice, according to those who knew her.

She was born in Guanabacoa, Havana. She began her studies at the Florencio de La Colina y Aranguren School of Dramatic Art. The socio-political change of 1959 that meant the Cuban Revolution allowed her to stop being a domestic employee and become an actress.

She completed three intensive years at the Municipal Academy of Dramatic Arts where she received classes from distinguished professors Mario Rodríguez Alemán, Roberto Garriga, José Antonio Escarpanter and, simultaneously, worked at the Puppet Theater of Havana, under the direction of Roberto Fernández, an experience that allowed her to learn puppet animation techniques and have her first contact with theater for children.

When the Municipal Academy closed, she joined the National Dramatic Ensemble, which allowed her to continue her development since this group fostered the artistic development of its members through seminars and workshops. There she received classes from Pierre Chaussat and from the great Spanish actress Adela Escartín, one of the greats of the Cuban stage in the fifties and sixties.

Since the sixties, Hilda carried out intense work within the ranks of various theatrical institutions such as the National Dramatic Ensemble, the Dramatic Workshop, the Ocuje Group, the Latin American Popular Theater, the Bertolt Brecht Political Theater, Studio Theater and Irrumpe Theater. Her work made her a pillar of the Ocuje and Irrumpe Theater groups, both led by the great director Roberto Blanco.

She has performed in important theatrical productions under the direction of the most distinguished Cuban theater directors such as Vicente Revuelta, Raquel Revuelta, Berta Martínez, Roberto Blanco, Nelson Dorr, Héctor Quintero, José Antonio Rodríguez and Armando Suárez del Villar. Her repertoire encompasses works by Cuban and foreign playwrights. Among them stand out the seminal María Antonia, by Eugenio Hernández Espinosa, where she embodied the humble Black woman of the republican era who confronted gods and men and assumed her destiny, the first time a Black female character achieved tragic stature; Electra Garrigó and Dos viejos pánicos by Virgilio Piñera; Santa Camila de La Habana Vieja, by José Ramón Brene; Réquiem por Yarini, by Carlos Felipe; Lumumba or A Season in the Congo, by Aimé Cesaire; Ocuje dice a Martí and De los días de la guerra, with texts by José Martí; Blood Wedding, The House of Bernarda Alba, Yerma and Mariana Pineda, by Federico García Lorca, in the splendid productions of Berta Martínez and Roberto Blanco; seminal titles from the Cuban stage of the eighties such as Perla Marina and Un sueño feliz, by Abilio Estévez; and even now, at eighty years old, Las lamentaciones de Obba Yurú, one of the most recent and beautiful texts by Eugenio Hernández Espinosa which in its spectacular version had a luxury team: the choreographic direction of Santiago Alfonso and the scenic designs of Eduardo Arrocha.

She has also worked in Cuban cinema in films such as Cecilia (1982), Maluala (1972), Habanera, and Patakín (1972), as well as in the television series Las honradas and El año que viene. She has performed in theaters in Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Guadeloupe, United States of America, Canada, Spain, Russia, Bulgaria, France and Portugal. In the summer of 2000 she participated in the show Lady Salsa, at the Edinburgh Festival, Great Britain and shortly after she toured Europe with Tocoro, a dramatic-musical show under the direction of the great dancer Carlos Acosta.

She has received several recognitions for her work such as the Female Performance Award at the National Theater Competition (1980); Female Performance Award at the International Theater Festivals of Havana in 1984 and 1989. She also holds the Distinction for National Culture and the Alejo Carpentier Medal from the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba. In 2004 she was awarded the National Theater Prize.